Not a Funeral
by bellagill92
Summary: Last Year had sucked. Sting was glad that it was over... Implied Sting/Minerva, though it could pass for bickering.


**A/N: Apologies, my dear readers. This fic comes a whole week late. In my defense, such is the case because I have been busy helping my sister out with my adorable baby nephew who was born just before New Year's!**

**This fic, as you may have noticed, focuses on Sabertooth. It is a side-story of my "Our World" series, though it can be read as a stand-along as long as you keep in mind that in this series, the Old Oracion Seis has been paroled and split apart and Angel and Midnight ended up in Sabertooth thanks to Angel's connection with Yukino. Minerva is also there (in parole too) and she and Angel have developed a strange friendship.**

"This is stupid," declared Minerva.

"_So_ stupid," Sorano agreed.

"You take that back!" Lector demanded.

"No," the so-called angelic mage said in a bland tone.

"I must admit that I have no memory of Sabertooth ever descending to such levels of tackyness," Rufus supplied.

"Get off my stage, Sting," Orga requested, already in full performance-garb, ready to offer his guild mates a show they weren't likely to appreciate.

The Guild Master of Sabertooth trembled with annoyance as he stood on the Guild Hall's stage with everybody looking at him. "No, _you _get off the stage. This is the _Guild's_ stage, not yours, and as the Guild Master, my announcements take precedence over your…" he hesitated for a moment "… _singing_."

"Tch…" Orga replied, rolling his eyes.

Sting cleared his throat. "Now, as I was saying, each of us is going to take a piece of paper that Dobengal is going to pass around and write down your resolutions for the New Year. Don't worry about censoring yourselves, because the paper is special – it will only let other people read your names, nothing more. Afterwards, we're going to take those papers, put them inside a box and bury it in the backyard together. And then, one year from today, we are going to dig them up and reflect on what we have done for the past year… which I guess at the moment is still next year – x792. Any questions?"

Orga cleared his throat behind him. "I have one. "What happened to you? You're supposed to be cool!"

"Sting-kun is cool! The coolest!" Lector protested.

"Doesn't sound like it. Where did you get this lame-ass idea from?"

"Wait, don't answer that," Sorano said from her table. "Let me take a guess: Faiwy Taiw," she said in a baby voice. "'Cause ow Mastah is a wittle boy who needs coow Nashu-sempai to guide him twuw nakama powah! _Lame!_"

"_So_ very much," Minerva agreed.

Sting fumed. "Yeah, well, I'm just going to go ahead and ignore the infinite wisdom of Sabertooth's very own Axis of Evil, which has brought them only blessings, including, but not limited to, jail time, thank you very much!" he replied. "Why don't you ladies take a page out of your third member's book and just have a nap?!" he added, gesturing to Macbeth who was, unsurprisingly, snoozing in his chair.

Angel turned to glare at Midnight and gave him an angry shove, which knocked him right off the chair. "Wake up! You're making us look bad!"

The only response she got as a snore as the heavily made-up man went on sleeping on the floor.

"I think it's a sweet idea," Yukino said softly, consistently pleasant.

"Yuki-chan, you don't need to suck up to the idiot just because he's somehow made it to Guild Master," her older sister told her. "He should know by now that big sister will have him eating through a straw for a long time if he treats her Yuki-chan unfairly."

It should be said that there was something extremely disturbing about Sorano Aguria's protectiveness of Yukino, which only had the whole guild wincing.

"S…Sorano-nee, please don't be so harsh with Sting-sama," Yukino softly defended, slightly worried. "He has done a very good job leading the guild these past few months. And I truly think this New Year's tradition will be very positive to the guild."

"Thank you, Yukino," Sting said. "Nice to see _someone_ appreciating my work for once." He promptly sent his team mate and shadow counterpart a look, silently cursing at him for his lack of support. Rogue, for one, considered his silence a sign of his utmost support – at least he wasn't voicing his own inner scorn for the truly lame idea that he was certain Gajeel wouldn't quite approve of either. "Dobengal, start passing the paper around."

The ninja-wannabe did so, though only because he owed Sting one for having rescued his butt during an S-class job a couple of months before. He found the idea a little cheesy too.

Sting wrote down his own list while still on stage, making a point of underlining the first two, 'Beat Natsu-san in a fight and all the Sorcerer's Magazine Mage Popularity Polls this year' and 'Stop being Minerva's doormat'.

"Sting," the woman in question called from her seat, causing him to look up.

He looked up. "What, Minerva?" he asked in annoyance.

"I don't quite get what you expect us to write down."

"New Year's resolutions."

She just looked at him with raised eyebrows.

He frowned. "For god's sake, don't tell me you don't know what that is!"

"I don't make a point of acquainting myself with terminology that is completely useless to me."

"You called my plans stupid and lame when you didn't even know what they meant?!" he accused.

She shrugged. "Most of the things you say and do fit those descriptions, so the possibility wasn't nearly as far-fetched as you are attempting to make it sound."

Still felt tempted to growl at her. "Just write down things you really want to do next year."

"Such as…"

"Such as disemboweling perverts who dare to touch my little sister's unexpecting breasts," Angel provided. "That is one of mine, by the way."

Rogue cringed on his seat, clutching the sleeping Frosh a little closer to his chest, and Yukino gasped. "Sorano-nee!"

"I was hoping for something a tad less fucked up," Sting remarked. "Like… I don't know, 'be less bitchy' or 'learn a thing or two about tact'."

Minerva raised an eyebrow. "And writing it down will magically make it happen?"

"What? No. It will just… state your intent to do it or something."

"Pointless," Minerva concluded. "It seems the word 'stupid' was more than well-applied, then."

Furious, Sting actually broke the pencil he'd been using to write with. That was it. He'd had enough.

"For fuck's sake, guys!" Sting shouted. "Yes, this is cheesy and lame and, yeah, I got the idea from Fairy Tail but guess what: most of them think it's cheesy and lame over there too but they still do it. And you know why? Because it's something they can do together and doing lame things together helps them being less of a shitty guild than we were last year and good part of this one too. So, unless you wanna go back to last consecutive five year's three-hour sessions of 'we must be stronger next year, we must maintain our superiority, we must rise above the top' that Jiemma always fed us, I suggest you start writing. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be out back digging a hole." And, with that, he walked off with Lector on a tow.

In hindsight, he should have really gotten started with the hole much earlier because there just happened to be about a foot and a half of snow covering the ground, making the dig far less straightforward than he would have thought. Unfortunately, blasting it out of the way was out of question, given that the guild's relationship with the neighbors was already suffering from its recently-acquired flare for rowdiness – after years of military-like behavior, it would be a while before their town reached Magnolia levels of acceptance for all things loud.

"Lame, they say," he mumbled to himself, shoveling snow out of the way. It wasn't going very well – he'd been digging for ten minutes and there was still no sign of the ground underneath the snow. "Why do I even bother?"

"Because you're the best Guild Master ever, Sting-kun!" Lector enthused, attempting to help out.

Sting sighed. "That's cool of you to say, Lector, but we both know that half the time I don't even know what I'm doing!"

"But you still do it better than Master Jiemma did!"

"Well… that's not very hard, r… _wuah_!" he shouted as a large block of soil disappeared beneath him and he fell butt-first into the hole resembling a small, yet considerably deep open grave. "The f…"

"Sting-kun!"

"Let's just get this matter over with," a familiar voice declared seconds before Minerva looked down at him up from ground-level.

Sting narrowed his eyes. It was clear she had used her space-shifting magic to move the ground beneath his feet elsewhere and make him fall into the mock grave. "The hell did you do that for, you nutjob? Are you trying to make me start the new year on a stretcher?!"

"Your digging skills are pitiful," she remarked. "At the rate you were going, we wouldn't be done with this laughable activity until the sun rose and I would much rather not waste that much time with it."

"So you tried to give me a broken leg or two?!"

Rogue appeared by Minerva's side, as did Yukino, and then Sorano, then Rufus and so on. Soon, he had the bulk of the guild looking down at him as he stood inside a friggin' hole on the floor.

"We've got everyone's resolutions in the box like you said, Sting-sama," Yukino informed him, showing him the box he had put aside for the task.

"Frosh wrote one too," the little exceed remarked, having apparently been awoken from her slumber to that specific purpose. "Frosh used crayons. It's pretty!"

Rufus cleared his throat. "I must admit that despite the campiness of the current activity, as far as my memory can tell, it is not as unpleasant as Master Jiemma's three-hour speeches," he offered. "No offence intended for our Lady in his behalf, of course."

"None taken. Father dear was never one for originality," Minerva admitted. "At least the chance to criticize our new Master's idiocy does bring some enjoyment to the occasion."

"Jiemma never let me perform on stage," Orga mumbled. "Even if it's just for fifteen minutes and I don't get to complain about food being thrown my way."

"You have no reason to. At least it's not as bad as prison food," Angel pointed out. "Just _barely _not_."_ And that was as far as she was willing to go in what came to offering positive criticism concerning the night – pointing out that the food was slightly less disgusting than the one served in prison. By Sorano Aguria's standards, that was the equivalent to a five-star review.

From his spot in the hole, Sting could only stare up at the motley crew in front of him. Was this their way of… _apologizing_? Of _appreciating his work?_ He must have knocked his head against something on the fall because, clearly, he was hallucinating.

"So, are you every going to climb out of that hole or should we bury you with that blasted box and leave you there to rot for a year?" Minerva questioned.

"If you have such a problem with me being down here, then maybe you should have refrained from digging a goddamn hole right beneath my feet!" he shouted.

She just scoffed, looking away.

"Here, I'll lend you a hand," Rogue offered, handing Frosh over to Yukino who had, in turn, handed the box over to Rufus.

Orga joined in at helping Sting out of the deep hole on the floor, which was only achieved with some difficulty, given how slippery snow was making the ground.

"Goddamn it, was it really necessary to make the hole so friggin' deep, woman?!" he asked Minerva.

She shrugged. "I am told the standard grave depth is around six feet. I was merely sticking to the guidelines."

"I think those guidelines only apply to the burial of human remains," Rogue remarked. "Which is not really the case."

"It's not?" Midnight's bleary voice questioned, turning to Sorano. "You told me we were attending a funeral. That was the only reason why I bothered to stay awake."

"I never said it was _a person's_ funeral, creep," she replied.

He narrowed his eyes. "This is boring. I'm getting back inside and resuming my nap," he mumbled, starting to turn away.

She grabbed him by the sleeve and violently pulled him back. "You stay right where you are and shut up! If I have to go through this lame fest, then so do you, you make-up-wearing, narcoleptic freak!"

He just groaned, used to his long-term guildmate's insults.

Yukino cleared her throat. "Alright, Sting-sama, how did you plan to do this?"

He shrugged. "I guess we just lower the box into the gra… hole. That's pretty much it. Anybody around who could levitate it in? Throwing it in there like a bag of sand is probably not that good an idea."

Rogue proceeded to produce some shadows – apparently the sort with a certain degree of solidity to them – which surrounded the box and slowly carried it into the hole, placing it at the bottom. For a moment, everyone just stood around waiting for something meaningful to happen, only to be overwhelmed by how underwhelming the action was.

"Isn't anybody going to cry? The crying is my favorite part," Midnight mumbled to Sorano.

"I've already told you it's not a real funeral! We're burying a bunch of paper inside a box. What is there to cry about?" Angel declared blandly.

"Paper? I had assumed it was at least one of the cats that had died," he stated.

"Hey! We're right here, you jerk!" Lector had protested, pointing at himself and up at Frosh, whose head was poking out of Yukino's winter coat.

"So, we're making of some sort of ritual? Or perhaps discarding evidence?" he questioned, not getting what the point was in burying paper.

"Not even that. Apparently, there's a metaphorical meaning to burying paper with plans written on them," Sorano stated.

"It is lost on me."

"That makes two of us."

"Hey!" Sting protested. "Stop making this sound stupider than it is!"

"Just get this over with," Minerva demanded. "It is nearly midnight and I refuse to cross into next year without a glass full of something expensive in my hand."

The blonde fumed. "_Fine_. In that box reside our hopes and dreams for next year…" on the background there were several bouts of fake coughing, mostly coming from the so-called Axis of Evil, which were supposed to cover insults from '*cough* lame *cough*' to '*cough* corny much? *cough* and '*cough* would you like a tampon with that? *cough*' – Sting ignored them "…which hopefully we will achieve together. We'll see about it one year from today." He turned to Minerva. "I guess you can put the dirt back where it belonged, though try not to crush the box in the process."

She just scoffed. "Please," she mumbled. And so, all of a sudden, the hole was replaced by snowy ground, including the small hole Sting had dug up with the shovel. Weren't it for the leftover patch of dirt that probably corresponded to the box's volume (having been removed to accommodate it) lying in the corner of the backyard, it would be as if nothing had even happened.

Again, there was a moment in which everyone just stared at where the hole used to be.

"I cannot help but feel like my memory will register this event as shockingly underwhelming," Rufus commented.

"Maybe next year we should plan this better," Rogue admitted. "Maybe fill up the hole without magic – it might make it more meaningful."

"Pointless," Angel scoffed.

Sting had to fight very hard not to insult the utter-psycho and likely get murdered in return. "Let's just go back in. I need a drink."

It wasn't until a few hours later, already in the New Year as half the guild lay around in various levels of drunkenness, that something rather important occurred to Sting.

"Wait…" he slurred, lounging on the floor by his Guild Master throne, which had been unceremoniously commandeered by Minerva. Rogue was not far, completely sober unlike everybody else. "Did anyone mark the spot where we buried the box?"

It was almost twenty seconds before anyone responded.

Then, Minerva took a swig of the indeed-shockingly-expensive sparkling wine bottle she'd half-drained all by herself. "Your planning is beyond terrible," she declared.

"Frosh thinks so too," Frosh mumbled, half-asleep on Rogue's lap.

"Shut up and go back to sleep," Sting spat back at the exceed.

The previous year had sucked. He was glad it was over.

**A/N: Happy 2015, everyone! Hope you had fun reading this. I think I may explore this Sabertooth more in the future... what do you think?**


End file.
